Chemical treatments on human hair, such as relaxers, straighteners, waves, perms, oxidative and direct dyes, highlights, lightening compositions and bleaches, are generally known to result in hair breakage and loss, dryness, roughness and brittleness, and skin and/or scalp irritation. Such chemical treatments employ various reducing and oxidizing agents, alkalizing agents, and coloring agents that help re-shape, artificially color, decolorize, modify the color shade/tone, or enhance the appearance and color of hair. Often times, these chemical treatments are used with the application of heat and mechanical combing or brushing, which may contribute to adversely affecting the condition of the hair and the hair cuticle.
Thus, conventional and customary practice by consumers and hair dressers is to have a waiting period of at least 24 hours, preferably two weeks, in between two different chemical hair treatments in order to prevent or reduce irritation to the skin or scalp and the potential damage to hair caused by different chemical treatments within a short period of time, e.g., a few hours.
One example of the problems encountered with successively chemically treating the hair is associated with the use of chemical relaxers or straighteners before coloring the hair. Generally, when hair straightening or relaxing is immediately followed by a conventional oxidative hair color that employs hydrogen peroxide as the only and/or primary oxidizing agent, the combined use of peroxide with the ingredients in the hair straighteners and relaxers can result in significant decrease in the quality of the hair fibers, leading to increased roughness and damage to the hair.
Another problem with hair chemical treatments is that they may prevent the hair's color or shade from being lightened, bleached, dyed or altered correctly after the chemical treatment and therefore, prevent the consumer from achieving the desired lightening or shade/color effects, especially when the lightening, bleaching, coloration or color-altering step is conducted immediately after the chemical treatment. Thus, a waiting period of at least 24 hours is generally recommended in order to reduce the chance of having a reaction between the different chemical treatments, for example, straightening then bleaching the hair, that could potentially result in an undesirable hair color or shade.
In order to address the concerns mentioned above, methods and compositions have been proposed such as those that involve the use of alternative ingredients and/or ingredients and compositions that are less harsh on hair and skin, including hair treatment regimens that may minimize the problems arising from successive chemical treatments. However, there still exists a need to improve such methods and compositions in order to formulate color-altering products and hair treatment regimens or systems that allow the consumer to successively chemically treat hair in a convenient and efficient manner, which effectively alter the color of and/or re-shape the hair while minimizing the damage to the hair and other adverse effects to the consumer.